Doc: A Memoir (30 page)

After I finished writing, Jenn asked me if I would please read it to her. Hadn’t she just said I didn’t have to do anything with the letter, just write it? But I took a gulp and began to read. Out loud. To Jenn and the cameras. And the whole rest of the world. I had never—never, never, never—bared myself in public like that before.

It was hard enough to believe I had written such a painful letter. It was even harder to believe I had read it for everyone. I covered my face as I finished, and I cried.

“That’s really heavy,” Jenn said.

I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah, uh-huh,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. I was trying to hold back more tears.

“You can be here for your kids,” she encouraged. “You’re a good person who was sick, and now you’re fighting for your life.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just trying to get better. Doing what it takes. Any course now. My life’s on the line. For me first, then the kids.”

I knew at some point all this stuff would be on television. My kids and my mom would be watching the episodes. So would their school friends and the church ladies. So would thousands and thousands of people who had seen me play baseball and followed me over the years, people who had been thrilled by my promise and saddened by my stumbles. I knew some of what was happening in my treatment would be hard to watch and listen to. It was certainly hard for me to say and do. But I hoped people would see I was digging into something honest and painful, exposing parts of my life that made me look stupid and selfish and weak. I hoped they wouldn’t all hate me for it. I hoped they wouldn’t judge me by that alone.

If I could finally learn to live sober and learn to stay that way, I knew there was no better gift I could give to any of those people who cared about me—or to myself. It would be the gift of saving my life.

Show Time

I
TRIED TO STEER CLEAR
of
Celebrity Rehab
’s celebrity craziness. That proved impossible. I was even the focus of one ridiculous eruption. About ten o’clock one night, just as I was getting ready for bed, one of the behind-the-scenes staffers came looking for me.

“Dykstra’s here,” he said.

How many other Dykstras are there? Lenny. Nails. My high-flying Mets teammate. I had told him I wasn’t going on
Celebrity Rehab,
and now here I was.

“Doc,” Lenny said, giving me a big hug. “I gotta get you out of here, man. I think they’ve kidnapped you. They have you hypnotized.”

Lenny had driven over from his home in Encino with two burly guys. He was there to bust me out of rehab.

I tried to calm him.

“Everything’s cool, Lenny,” I told him. “I came here because I wanted to. I actually think this is helping me.”

The producers tried to get Lenny to sign a waiver so they could use some of his footage on the show. Lenny totally refused. He didn’t trust anything about the place or those people. But I was starting to think I could trust them with my life.

Bob Forrest, especially, had total credibility with me. He wasn’t only the head counselor at the recovery center. He’d been through everything I was going through, maybe even more. When he spoke about drug addiction, he had lived what he was speaking about.

Bob is a brilliant musician, a respected veteran of the alternative music scene in Los Angeles. He has had long associations with Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, performing with them many times over the years. But his early career got sidetracked by heroin and other drugs. After beating his own addiction, he helped many in the music world confront theirs.

He was constantly calling me and the other residents on our little excuses and justifications.

“It’s your life, take responsibility,” Bob would say, peering from beneath the big floppy hat he wore almost all the time.

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself. That’s just another way of hiding. Haven’t you hidden long enough?”

Dr. Drew was impressive. He is an educated man and a well-trained expert. But he hasn’t been through addiction the way that Bob has. Bob 100 percent knew his stuff. He was all about the treatment, not the showbiz.

One day, the three of us were discussing my childhood and my family, trying to get at the roots of why I had always felt so sad and vulnerable and insecure.

“When you were a child, do you remember any particular trauma that you witnessed or went through?” Dr. Drew asked.

“Nothing major,” I said instinctively.

I thought for a second.

“I’ve seen a couple of my friends get cut,” I said. “I’ve seen a couple of my friends get beat up real bad. I’ve seen dead bodies in the projects and stuff like that. Is that what you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Drew said.

“But as far as real trauma, no,” I said.

Bob Forrest spoke up. “Have you ever had any family members get shot? Anything like that?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten.

“I witnessed my sister getting shot.”

They both sat up immediately.

“Tell us about your sister getting shot,” Bob said.

“Well,” I said. “Her husband did it. I saw it happen. I was in the kitchen. I was five years old.”

I told the whole, gruesome story of that horrible day. About being in the kitchen and G. W. coming in and firing and me grabbing Derrick and hiding in the bathroom and thinking G. W. would come after us and staying in the bathroom until the red-faced policeman came in and crouched on the floor.

I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to mention that.

“You don’t think that’s trauma?” Bob asked.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Let me ask you this,” Dr. Drew said. “When you get high, don’t you always go into the bathroom? Wasn’t that a safe place for you? You think those two things might be connected somehow?”

That was amazing. Bob and Dr. Drew had just drawn a straight line from the fear and anxiety I’d felt as a child to the drugs I’d used as an adult. No one in any other rehab or treatment center had ever thought to make that connection. It was like a little light went on in my head.

My whole time in treatment, our conversations kept coming back to my family. “Stay on the point of greatest urgency,” Bob explained.

“So your son, he was in jail for trafficking drugs?” Dr. Drew asked
me in one of our later sessions. This time, he had asked Dr. John Sharp, a psychiatrist from Harvard Medical School, to join us. Dr. Sharp would be overseeing my aftercare when I left Pasadena.

“Trafficking,” I said. “Not using. He sold to an undercover cop. I think that’s what it was.”

Drew looked a little skeptical. “So he was a trafficker, but never a user?” he asked.

“No, he never used,” I said. As far as I knew, he hadn’t.

Drew didn’t press that point.

“Why are you guys apart now?” he asked. “Why did he move out?”

Dwight Junior and I had never discussed that directly. In fact, there wasn’t much we’d discussed while I was sober. I knew he was upset with me, but I could only guess why. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. This was typical for both of us. It was how my dad and I had been.

I told Dr. Drew what I recalled. “He went to Tampa for Thanksgiving, and he never came back. But somewhere inside me, I think he moved out because of my use.”

Dr. Sharp jumped in. “You might be right,” he said. “But you might be wrong. So it would be good to find out.”

“That’s a great idea,” Drew said, brightening up.

I wasn’t sure what they meant. But I said, “Yeah, okay.”

The door opened behind me. Dwight Junior walked in.

Looking back, I can see how Dr. Drew and his team were working almost from the beginning to hatch some kind of reunion. But when my son walked through the door, I was totally surprised. He looked good. Tall and confident. He had on a red T-shirt that said
TRUST NOTHING WITH TEETH.

I truly couldn’t believe he was walking through that door. “Wow,” I said, getting up to give him a hug. “What’s up?”

People always said I had a big smile. My son smiles just like me, maybe bigger. They probably didn’t need lights in the room to catch
us on camera. We provided our own Gooden electricity. But I didn’t know what to say. “Hey, what’s happening?” I said again.

“Hey, what’s happening?” he said back. “Good to see you.”

“Flight was all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, long,” he said.

When people don’t know what to say, even fathers and sons, sometimes they just fill up the spaces, whether it’s important or not.

Dwight Junior sat down. “Thanks for coming,” Dr. Drew told him. Then he got right down to business. “So, Dwight Senior was telling us a couple of things,” Dr. Drew said. “What was the reason you moved out in November?”

I think Dwight Junior was surprised by the question, how direct it was. “Um, actually, um,” he began. “I had to go back to Florida for some… um… personal issues. So I had to go home.”

Drew always pressed hard. He turned to me. “Dwight,” he said, “did you have some concerns about why he left?”

“Yeah,” I said, turning to my son. “I was just saying to them that I was thinking that you probably left because of my drug use.”

Dwight Junior looked both relieved and frightened to hear me say that.

“To be honest, um, hmm, yeah, it’s… it’s a hurting feeling to see that, to see what was going on,” he said, clearly reaching for the right words to say what he meant. “Then at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t, I couldn’t, like, I felt I couldn’t really help.”

He spoke to Drew directly. “I wanted to say stuff, but then again I really didn’t want to be hard on him because I didn’t want that to be an excuse for him to try and go use more. So I really didn’t say much, so it really took a toll on me inside, and then again, I really didn’t want to leave him alone to be in that situation by himself either.”

Hearing that almost doubled me over. Growing up, my son had felt like he had to take care of me. Not only had I not protected him, I had
made him feel like he had to watch out for me. That is really, really messed up.

Dwight Junior had every right to be furious with me. But as a kid, he was afraid I couldn’t handle his anger. It would add to the pressure I was under and give me another excuse to use more drugs. He had to eat his own feelings all those years. He couldn’t blame his dad, although all the blame was mine.

My God, what a burden I had placed on my kids! At least Dwight Junior and I were clearing up some difficult business. My son had a right to that.

Dr. Sharp looked directly at me. “You said you wanted to apologize to him for something.”

My son was on my left. I looked straight ahead, unable to look him directly in the eyes.

The two professionals were not making this easy. They’d probably say easy isn’t their job.

“Yeah,” I said. “The thing I wanted to apologize for was…”

“Direct it right to him,” Drew said.

I looked at Dwight Junior, though still not directly into his eyes. “The thing I want to apologize for is, number one, going back to oh-five when we were together in the house and I was isolated a number of times. You would cook breakfast I think basically to try and get me out of the room and I wouldn’t come out. I was choosing my drugs over you and your sisters and brothers. So I just want to apologize for the actions I went through with that.”

At that point, I could see my grown son begin to tear up. I wanted to lean over and hold him. He had grown up with only half a father, maybe less than that. He deserved so much more. But I needed to finish what I was trying to say.

“And also that time we were both incarcerated, I know we had dreams about playing professional ball together,” I said. “My deal
was to play as long as I could until you got there. But then to end up spending time with you in jail. That’s something I never said I was sorry for. But I’d just like to apologize for it now. You don’t have to accept it now. Accept it on your time. But it’s something I had to let you know. I love you for sharing with me how you feel. Even if it’s something I don’t want to hear, I need to hear it. I have to hear it. I do love you.”

Whew.

That was a long time in coming.

It felt so right to be saying it.

I had a feeling my son was getting what I was saying. He was crying as much as I was. “I love you too,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, patting him on the back.

We all took a minute to catch our breath.

Then Dr. Sharp spoke, to my son this time.

“It really affects you, Dwight, to hear that from your dad,” he said.

“Yeah,” he said, really losing it now. “It’s rough because I always wanted the best for him. I always knew if he was a different person, we could’ve been at another level right now. I’m not trying to down him. But due to his actions he kinda slowed up the process for everyone. He was the leader. He had a name, a good name, and then I’m Junior. So I have to live everything out—all his wrongs, all his rights. I have to live it out.”

Drew stepped in, now asking me, “Do you give him permission to tell you his feelings even when you’re using, even when you’ve fallen down, even when you’re in trouble?” Damn, I hoped he’d never have to do that again. But whatever happened in the future, I wanted that much to be clear.

“Yes,” I told my son, “you definitely have my permission for that. Anytime you see me headed that way—”

“Even if you’re well,” Dr. Drew interrupted.

“Yeah, even if I’m well, or you see me slipping, or you see any signs, whatever, let me know.”

I totally want that. I think my son does too.

“Well,” Dr. Drew told Dwight Junior. “I think the plan is to allow him to be open and honest with you. To express feelings both ways.”

Dr. Drew looked at me. “Good job with the apologies,” he said.

Then back to Junior: “Good job being open with your feelings about having to struggle with his condition and how that affects you emotionally.”

Family was my road to recovery. But that wasn’t necessarily true for everyone. For family day, all eight of the cast members got together at the nearby Happy Trails Catering with our children, parents, spouses, siblings—anyone who would agree to visit and sign a release to appear on camera. But if the presence of family was meant to calm everyone’s nerves, it had exactly the opposite effect. Happy Trails turned unhappy in a hurry. My roommate, Jeremy, introduced his sister Taylor to Amy, who said she and Jeremy were becoming good friends. Taylor wasn’t sure who Amy was.